Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (27 page)

*Just dump it
all. You can check if you like, but I don't want any chances, no
matter how slight, taken.*

The second
brain was in prepared plug-in boards in the base of the cart with
the extra little motor. There was a circuit in the cart's directive
center I couldn't read. I couldn't even find the code to activate
it.

We dumped the
whole mess into the sun and headed home to meet Kit.

T6 and TR

T6 was a lot of
fun. It and TR shared a good time with Maita. Kit was made in the
form of a Kheth and had been given a strange sense of humor. T6 had
developed its own brand of humor when it first found its
independent intelligence.

Thing and Z
were entertaining Kit and me at Z's place when Maita called to say
Fleet found one more of the brain's ships, accounting for all of
them. They read it completely and simply took it apart. Maita
raised hell, so they destroyed all the memory circuits.

The brain was
finally completely dead. I didn't have any least feeling we missed
anything this time, but then, I hadn't had such feelings before,
either.

Z said he was
afraid we hadn't heard the last of it.

It was a
peaceful time for friends to be together. I knew that soon I was
going to take Kit and T6 on a case when the right kind of thing
came along.

I reflected
about us machines. Maita, TR, and I always worked well with our
organic friends. T6 and Rimalt had shared what can only be
described as a great love for one another. I can understand that,
knowing my own feelings for Thing and Z. It's not a programmed
thing. It just grew. Kit would develop the same sort of thing,
probably.

Maita was
originally designed by an exceptionally good race who programmed it
to be a partner, not a slave. The intelligence was very
deliberately built in, and it was always meant that it would be
independent. In fact, it was planned for Maita's class of ship be
the rulers. That was why Maita was now emperor of this vast
empire.

TR and I were
built to aid Maita, but also to share all things with organics. Not
take orders from, not give orders to. Share.

T6 was
accidentally given its independent intelligence, and it was great
good fortune Rimalt had been aboard to meet the stupid thing it did
with humor. The friendship had grown.

Theron was
built by a race who were as good as the Maitans and was truly
sharing its existence with the much-loved Zulians. It was built to
share with its makers the great joy and adventure of exploring.

Searcher was
built by the Maitans, who designed much of its circuitry much like
Maita's. It was built to share.

The brain of
the Tlessarians was built as a war machine and was meant to be a
slave-type servo. Its intelligence was purely accidental, as was
T6's, but it wasn't designed to build and share. It was designed to
destroy.

All of this
should be entered very carefully into Library. Thenceforth, all
cultures with the ability to build mechanical intelligences should
be required to study it carefully – except for the fact the emperor
was a machine, of course. That would be left out.

It's too bad
that many cultures tend to find the way to make machines such as
the brain and myself before they're part of the empire and can use
Library. It's important developing cultures understand the possible
ramifications of what kind of machines they built.

I think they
know the dangers, but perhaps choose to build the machines of war
out of fear of their own natures.

It's a problem
I can't solve.

Flight of the
Maita

Book 20

Problem on
Sentah

© 1987 &
2012 by C. D. Moulton

A crime
syndicate is going to move into the vacation worlds? I really don’t
think so! Kit is introduced.

Critic
comment

Moulton has
captured the contrast of ways different types of beings might act
in a situation that is more moral than legal. The is some raucous
humor, plus a more serious side, and a definite moral theme. I
first believed the use of asterisks and brackets would detract from
the work, but find I’m leaning toward very much appreciating the
device. – KL Rate: ****

Contents

Moving On with T6

Honesty is the Best Policy

Place Your Bet, Take Your
Chances

Games People Play

Deadly Adversary

Concentrate on Jornians

Captured!

Lion

Business Meeting

Following the Trail

Bad Scene!

The Net Closes In

Deeper and Deeper

Dropping In

A Few Answers

The History of the Deal

Moodad

Problem On
Sentah

Moving On with
T6

It hadn't been
a pleasant time.

Tab and TR, the
mechanical being built by Maita, (Emperor of the Maitan Galactic
Empire And another machine, but only a few of us know that), was on
some world called Flimt working on a special assignment to see
about getting rid of some weird things happening there.

Thing, my
Mentan friend, a small roundish empath with four tentacles in lieu
of arms and legs and eyes on stalks, along with myself, Z (Steve
Zutec of Earth), had come on Maita to Inkta to be with Rimalt. He
was dying and refused to take life extension, though he did take
some treatments some years ago. He had done some very good work for
the empire as well as for my home planet.

I'm
pretty sure Tab will write a book about his own experiences (Book
nineteen:
Machine Made
) as
soon as he's sure everything's handled and settled. He likes to
write about his part in these little adventures the same as I
do.

If you've read
any of his books you've probably noted he likes to write in first
person. I generally write my stuff as though I'm an observer (third
person), saying "Z said," or "He went into the next room," instead
of "I said," etc. Tab says he takes a lot of his style from me, but
he really takes it from the books I brought from Earth. He's read
all those Nero Wolfe and CD Grimes things.

Rimalt was a
professor on University for some years (Which shows the man's
actual brilliance. Barely one professor in ten thousand was even
considered for a post at University) and had, quite by accident,
become owner of record of an intelligent ship, T6 – or just Ship.
The ship became sentient by accident when it was overhauled about
sixty years past and, considering Rimalt was its closest friend and
partner, it would experience a traumatic separation when Rimalt
died. Maita wanted to be there as another machine who had gone
through the same thing several times.

T6 would
probably now join our permanent crew.

I took the
extension treatments and will continue to do so, as will Thing. The
machines are immortal, for all practical reasons, anyhow. We should
remain together for a long time and will probably have a few
experiences together on the order of those we've experienced with
the several combinations of "The Emperor's Crew" in the past.

Maita speaks to
us through speakers in all parts of itself, as well as through a
number of other devices. It was designed and built to be a
spaceship, and is a damned good one. The emperor thing was more or
less thrust on it (It was also designed to "run things" and to
handle the bureaucratic garbage by the Maitans).

We have a
system for the differences in Maita's speech and Thing's, which
uses the same speakers. Thing is an empath who has no ability to
speak directly so Maita translates for it. It rides around on one
of us or on a floater most of the time because its tentacles aren't
designed for moving around in a smooth spaceship or other smooth
surfaces.

Maita uses a
bell tone ( *–* ) before and after its speeches and a somewhat
lower tonal range than Thing's. Thing has a middle C tuning fork
sound ( [ – ] ) before and after its speech. Neither of them
originally had any particular inflection. Everything they say is in
one long paragraph. We're all used to it now. We listen to the
words instead of the intonation, though they now use a lot of
inflection.

Maita started
using a few contractions over the years because I use them, so
Thing quite naturally – Maita IS translating its thoughts – uses
the same ones.

Thing was with
me on T6 after the funeral, when Maita called to say Tab had come
up with a case for us.

Tab is designed
to be a detective, but Thing and I do some of his work for him
whenever he's too busy (I lie! We did it ONCE before!). Maita said
this was a good case to take T6 on, because it would mostly be up
to Thing and me, allowing them to spend the time working on
programs and learning about each other.

*It will work
out well. We can decide what we want to do while you two solve this
case for us.*

[ What's the
case about? ]

*Organized
crime syndicate, apparently. The VWPA caught the smaller members,
who are all in jail. They haven't found the real leaders, though,
and they are having one of their agents hide out on Flimt. That's
how Tab found out about it. Tab left some hints about how to
proceed.*

"How's Tab
doing?" I asked. "You seemed awfully nervous when he took off."

*I am still
nervous. I think TR is lying to me, but they say they are handling
it.*

[ Lying? TR? To
you? I can't picture TR lying to you. ]

*It makes me
worry there may be Immins out there.*

"No way! That's
one thing I'm very sure of! There are no Immins out there. The
Eacherons and those people wouldn't put up with their crap for one
picosecond!"

The Immins were
a race we fought for three hundred plus years. They were finally
quarantined on their home planet, Orta, where they quickly
proceeded to annihilate themselves with nuclear wars.

[ Has he called
the Acnians? Rollo? ]

"Is Rollo still
alive?"

*Rollo is quite
old. His son is now head of the fleet. Tab hasn't called anyone.
Why?*

[ Because if
there were Immins Tab would have called in the Acnians and we would
know about it. TR's stubborn, but it's not stupid. ]

"Maita likes
playing mother hen. If Tab gets into trouble he'll yell for help.
Like Thing says, they ain't stupid.

"Where is this
case?"

*Somewhere you
know very well. Sentah.*

[ Do you want
to stay here awhile, T Six? ]

"No," T6
replied (through the same speakers. TR, Maita, Thing, and now T6,
all used the same speakers. On the floaters or in the ships it
would be the same. T6 would be identified by tone of carriage,
though it would speak in the pattern of the Inktans, so would
differentiate tones and thoughts. TR and Tab had the same way of
speaking, and sounded like normal people). "It would be foolish to
stay here. I'm ready to go. You can ride in me or go to Maita. It
will be a slow trip to what you're used to. I only have TTH
four."

*I'll install
TTH fourteen while these two are screwing around on Sentah. We can
get that done and I'll program how to use it into your computers.
It all has to be pre-figured.There aren’t and never will be any
beacons in fourteen.*

[ We might as
well get started. You can chat all you want in TTH four. ]

"Only on
fastcom. Let's go!"

Honesty is the
Best
Policy

Sentah was in
the original "Pirate Worlds" group and was now a vacation planet,
along with other pirate worlds such as Netdel, Tltle, Bypass, and
Frim. It was beautifully landscaped. The buildings were so
perfectly designed they looked almost as though they were natural
features.

There was never
any question anywhere that these worlds were tremendously
expensive. The casinos were very high-stakes and all was run to the
rules of the empire. No one was allowed to gamble for higher stakes
than he could afford. All was determined before the chits were
approved. A limit was set when the person first came aground. They
weren't permitted to extend what was set at that time.

The peoples of
the worlds were shown from the first that they must police the
games very carefully. If they ever got a negative reputation,
however slight, of unfair or illegal practices, they were through.
Not only would the empire close them down, but their patrons would
probably do it first.

The empire and
everything in it are run on the idea of honesty being the best
policy. Considering the fact the empire is galaxy-wide and new
worlds are constantly petitioning to join, I have to say it really
IS!

[ After
all, why should anyone in their right mind try to steal from people
who come for the express purpose of GIVING you more than you could
possibly gain through theft? ] was a quote from Thing that was
drummed into all employees of all casinos. That was done since the
first day we started the idea of making those worlds – back when
there was no Maitan Empire (Book three:
Pirates
). That was more than three hundred years
ago.

Thing would
never understand why these things kept coming up. It had no doubt
whatever that the perpetrators of these criminal activities would
prove to be people who already had more than anyone could use in
their lifetimes. They always seemed to be the most greedy people in
every civilization that had such criminals. Many didn't.